Seals as Filter Feeders

Although normally preying on penguins and smaller seals, researchers have found the leopard seal (Hydrurga leptonyx) can feed on tiny krill like a whale by filtering them through specialized teeth, allowing this species to feed from both the top and the bottom of the Antarctic food web.

Advanced Dinosaur Teeth

Paleontologists and engineers studying the fossilized teeth of duck-billed dinosaurs (hadrosaurids) have found them to be more complex than modern grazers such as cows and horses with an amazing capacity to chew tough and abrasive plant matter.

Stone Age Dental Filling

Locked away in a museum for 101 years, recent x-ray imaging of a 6500-year-old fossilized jawbone originally found in Slovenia reveals an artificial beeswax filling perfectly filling a cavity on a cracked canine tooth, the oldest known example of Neolithic dentistry.

Bendable Teeth Discovered

Researchers have found the teeth of the suckermouth catfish (Loricariidae) have a section containing more collagen and significantly less calcium, magnesium and phosphate than the rest of the tooth, permitting the tooth to bend and flex as opposed to being the hardest material in their bodies.

Dinosaur Migration from Teeth

By measuring isotopes of oxygen in the tooth enamel of the fossilized remains of Camarasaurus and comparing those levels to known sedimentary compositions, researchers have produced the first hard evidence of dinosaur seasonal migration.

Fossil Rodent Teeth

Tiny fossil teeth of ancient rodent species found in Peru date back some 41 million years, 10 million years older than previously known examples, and indicate an evolutionary line descended from similar African species.

Viking Tooth Modification

Viking graves in Denmark, Sweden and England have revealed a 10th-century cultural tradition of tooth modification among Viking warriors with neat horizontal lines filed into two or more front teeth.

"Nutcracker Man" Ate Grass

By analyzing the carbon left on the teeth of the ancient hominid known as the "Nutcracker Man" (Paranthropus boisei), so named because his large teeth and powerful jaws suggested a diet of nuts, researchers have found that this specimen dined more heavily on grasses than any other human ancestor.

Dollo's Law and Frog Teeth

One tree frog species (Gastrotheca guentheri) has redeveloped teeth in its lower jaw whereas all frog species lost similar teeth about 200 million years ago, a contradiction of Dollo's law which claims that species' traits lost to evolution are never regained.

Croc Ancestor with Unique Teeth

A newly discovered fossil ancestor of modern crocodiles (Pakasuchus kapilimai) reveals a few uncharacteristic traits of the cat-sized reptile, primarily differentiated teeth and a sliding component of the jaw that allowed it to chew food, an ability previously thought to be a uniquely mammalian trait.